NEW DELHI: Virat Kohli walked out to bat when India were in a spot of bother at 14/2 after 11 overs against Australia in Perth on Friday. Both the left-handers — Yashasvi Jaiswal and Devdutt Padikkal — were back in the hut and the onus was now on India’s most experienced batter to swim them out of troubled waters in the first session of the opening Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test.
The bat resting on his right shoulder, the batter prepared to take guard for his first delivery and as he scratched the popping crease, there was a visible difference. From the usual middle-leg guard, he was marking closer to the off-stump and stood around the middle-off stump.
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The middle and off-stump are visible in his usual guard but his tweaked mark covered the middle-stump and just about showed the off-stump. It looked like a move to counter and be closer to the deliveries in the fourth-fifth stump channel, which he has often poked at. But was it ideal for a bouncy, pacey Perth strip?
In addition to the change in guard, Kohli chose to stand way out of the crease to counter the movement and even that was a questionable approach on a track where bowlers kept pinging the good length, just short of a good length spot. Majority of the 12 deliveries he faced were around that length and Kohli remained itchy to get on to the front-foot to deliveries he was better fending off the back foot by making adequate use of the depth of the crease.
The delivery which ended his stay in the middle rose sharply to find the edge of his bat but had he gone deeper into the crease, like KL Rahul successfully did during his compact innings, he would have been in a far more comfortable position. Credit to Josh Hazlewood for pushing the length back a bit from the previous delivery but it was Kohli’s lapse in judgement of length, and the constant urge to get on to the front-foot, which led to his departure.
During the Lunch interval show of broadcaster Star Sports, India batter Cheteshwar Pujara, who has enjoyed a lot of success Down Under, dished out a technical masterclass on Kohli and his dismissal. Bat in hand, India’s former No. 3 explained how Kohli could never get on top of the ball because he was always looking to get on to the front foot.
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“Standing outside the crease didn’t allow Virat to counter that rising delivery because there was no time to make that adjustment. When you stand outside the crease, you look to get on top of the ball but the bounce in the pitch never allowed that. Even the dismissal, he would have been on top of that ball had he played from the crease, off the backfoot,” explained Pujara.
It could be the slowing reflexes or even a lapse in judgement but Kohli didn’t get off to an ideal start in the part of the world where he has enjoyed substantial success in the past.